by L. A. Fiore
He chuckled, “Can’t say that I have.”
“I bet it’s beautiful.”
“Are you looking for an invitation?” I wanted her to come; I wanted to show her the beauty of Brochan’s home.
“Me? What? No…yes.”
I looked over at Brochan. His expression gave nothing away but he said, “Whatever you want.”
“Can you get off work, Ethan?”
“I’ve over a month of vacation days accumulated. I should use some.”
“So we’re doing it. You don’t mind, do you Brochan?” Cait used her puppy dog eyes.
“No.”
“Hot damn. Scotland. I can’t wait. Oh wait, I need new clothes, plaids and wools and boots. I need new boots.”
Ethan lifted his glass of wine. “Here we go.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
LIZZIE
“Holy shit. You live here?” Cait’s face was pressed up against the window as Brochan drove the car around the circular drive. It had been ten weeks since I left.
Finnegan and Fenella were waiting out front, as were two large beautiful dogs. There was affection in his voice when Brochan said, “The pups got big.”
As soon as I climbed from the car, Fenella had me in a bone-crushing hug. “You’re back.” She pushed me away while still holding my upper arms then pulled me back for another hug. She was crying.
“It’s so good to see you too.”
She held me away again. “I didn’t think you were coming back and it broke my heart because you and he…” She glanced over at Brochan who was introducing Cait and Ethan to Finnegan. “You are perfect for each other.”
“I knew that, he does now too.”
“I know. I see it in the way he looks at you.”
“How have you been?” I asked as I wrapped an arm around her waist as we joined the others.
“Mad, annoyed, but I knew he’d be successful. I’ve been cooking in preparation for your return home.”
Home. I looked behind us to the magnificent castle made so because of the man who owned it. She was right. This was home. I smiled at her. “He came to you.”
“Aye.”
“That had to have felt good.”
Tears welled. “There are no words.”
I squeezed her then called, “Cait, Ethan, this is Fenella.”
As they said their hellos I joined Brochan who had two beautiful dogs jumping up on him but when he ordered them to sit, they did. “These are Boomer and Champ.” He looked back at the dogs. “And this is the lady of house. You are to protect her when I’m not home.”
Both dogs turned to me as if they understood exactly what Brochan had said. Like those cows, maybe they really did.
“Lady of the house?” I teased him even loving that he called me that.
“You’re my woman and you’re carrying my bairn; you’re the lady of the house.”
“We need to share the news with Fenella and Finnegan.”
“When we drop the bags in our room.”
“Our room?”
He yanked me close and whispered in my ear, “I’m not sneaking around my own house to fuck my woman. You’re in my bed.”
I wasn’t going to argue. “Maybe we could give Cait and Ethan the white room.”
“Done. Let’s share the news and eat because I have plans for you,” he said. My entire body throbbed. He added, “No clothes required.”
Finnegan pushed the doors open to Brochan’s room and I had to catch my breath. It was sparse, elegant and so totally Brochan. The panel walls and ceiling were black, thick crown moldings that were detailed in the corners were also black. The floors were a dark wood with no area rugs to adorn them. The windows went from floor to ceiling and were draped in black chenille. A twelve-armed crystal chandelier hung in the center of the room. The bed was huge and looked like a sea of black and the headboard was gray and not much taller than a sofa table. There were books piled on one side, but it was the small silver frame on the other side that had my heart squeezing in my chest. I walked over and picked up the picture, the one I had sketched of Brochan’s gates. He’d not only kept it, he’d had it framed. Our eyes met from across the room.
“Why did you want us to join you?” Finnegan asked.
Brochan crossed the room to me and wrapped his arm around my waist, pulling me tight to his side. He looked down at me, giving me the honor of telling them.
With teary eyes and a full heart I said, “We’re pregnant.”
Finnegan processed the news first when he smiled, something I hadn’t seen him do. Fenella took a minute but when it sank in, she broke down into tears. I broke down into tears when Brochan hugged her and whispered, “You’re going to be a grandmother.”
She recovered quickly and reached for my hand. “You boys go down and entertain our guests. Lizzie and I will join you shortly.”
Finnegan dropped his hand on Brochan’s shoulder. “I think we need to crack open the John Walker you bought me for Christmas last year.”
“Come with me,” Fenella said after the men had left. In her suite of rooms, she led me to the walk-in closet that was a room in and of itself. She pulled open a drawer; the smell of cedar filled the space. She lifted a small garment. Tears hit my eyes.
“This was Brochan’s,” she whispered. “I kept some of his things hoping one day he’d have children of his own.”
My hand shook as I took it from her, seeing a little Brochan with those pale eyes small enough to wear it.
“You’ll need a nursery. I have his old crib, but I think it might be better to buy something new. Safety reasons.
“I agree. I’d like the baby in our room.”
She approved by the smile that touched her face.
“You need blankets, clothes, nappies, mobiles…you’ll want to paint the room. I have numbers for contractors.”
“I think we should paint the room, you, Finnegan, Brochan and me.”
She started to cry again.
“And we’ll definitely need a trip to Edinburgh to shop. We can bring the men; they can carry our bags.”
She was feeling too emotional to speak so she wiped at her eyes and simply said, “Aye.”
Brochan and I were in the cabin, his plans for me that required no clothes. I was a little hesitant since I didn’t have fond memories of the place. Brochan was determined to correct that and lying naked on top of him on the floor in front of the fire, sated and happy, he was doing a fine job of changing my opinion.
“I can’t believe Cait tried haggis with no arm twisting.”
“She didn’t just try it. She liked it.”
She did. She had two servings. Dinner had been a bit of everything. Fenella really had been cooking in preparation. After dinner, a weary Ethan and Cait called it a night. They had no sooner left the library, and Brochan was dragging me to the cabin.
“What is this place?”
“A hunting lodge, likely built around the same time of the house. I used it when they were renovating the castle. It’s been used from time to time.”
“By who?”
“Wanderers.”
“How do you know?”
“There had been evidence when I temporarily moved in that someone had been living here in this century.”
“You don’t lock it?”
“It’s technically mine, but no. I don’t see the harm. Someone gets turned around, like you have a habit of doing, and they have somewhere to catch their breath.”
I leaned up on my elbow. “That’s very kind of you.”
He pulled me back down. “It’s not kind, it’s practical. They use this instead of banging on my door and bothering me with their bullshit.”
That sounded more like Brochan.
“Speaking of getting turned around. There are several places in the woods that the land just drops, a far enough drop you could hurt yourself. And with the dogs, they wander. You need to be careful when you’re out there.”
“Okay.”
Silence fell and I had the
sense there was something else on his mind, something more than lodges and drop offs. Before I could ask what was troubling him he said, “We’re cutting the ugly from our lives.” He wrapped me in his arms before he stood and dropped me to my feet. “Get dressed. I have to show you something.”
It was late as we walked through the woods. The moon was barely a sliver in the night sky, but Brochan didn’t need its light. He knew the way. He hadn’t said anything since he told me to get dressed. We reached the castle but instead of the front door or the one off the kitchen, he took me to another door that led lower into the castle.
At the bottom of the stairs was a hook holding a flashlight. The beam of light reflected off the dirty stone floor and the grates. The dungeon. A chill moved through me.
“Brochan, why are we down here?”
He didn’t answer, just led the way deeper into the dungeon. There was a door at the end of the hall. Several padlocks kept whatever was behind that door from getting out.
Brochan stopped and I caught a glimpse of his face. Tormented. I wanted to hold him, wanted to take it all away, instead I did what he needed most. I listened. “My father didn’t die in the fire.”
I hadn’t realized I was crying until my vision blurred. “You locked him up down here?”
He gestured to the window that sat high up on the door. My feet wouldn’t move, too afraid of what I would find behind that door, more afraid that I wouldn’t be able to understand why Brochan had become a monster to deal with one.
Brochan knew it too when he whispered, “His accommodations are nicer than he’d find in a mental hospital, which is where he really should be.”
Peeking into the room, it was larger than I expected, and furnished like the house above with old rugs on the stone floors, sofas and chairs, a little eating area. Paintings hung on the walls, a large bed sat in one corner. He’d even run cable for the television with DVR that was tucked in the corner.
“A nurse comes three times a day. Feeds him, cleans him. Talks with him not that he understands. His mind left him a long time ago.”
That woman I’d seen with Brochan. She was his father’s nurse.
“But why keep him here at all?”
He didn’t answer but he didn’t have to. Hatred, vengeance was what kept the broken man buried in the darkest part of the castle, Brochan’s hatred.
“That kind of hatred is really dark stuff.”
“He used to leave me outside in the cold in the middle of winter. He’d drag me from bed by my hair in the middle of the night. Called me an animal and animals slept outside.”
I went numb.
“He used to hold my head under at the pond, cleansing me of my sins he claimed. When I’d gasp for air, he’d laugh even while wishing I wouldn’t cough air back into my lungs. On the only occasion that Fenella and Finnegan left me alone because they believed my father was away on business, he locked me in the dungeon. He’d tricked us, dragged me down there and left me…no food, no water and no light. Rats and spiders nipped at me but by the time a furious and horrified Finnegan found me three days later, I’d stopped fighting the rodents. It was the same time I stopped feeling.”
His beautiful eyes, lifeless now, looked down at me. “My only crime was being born.”
All that I lived through, my mother’s cruelty, my father’s indifference, Nadine’s abuse, the loneliness, none of that broke me, but listening to Brochan dispassionately retell nightmares from his childhood that would make even Satan shudder, that broke me. I lowered my head because it wasn’t just tears but rage, a burning rage powerful enough to have a grown man locking away his tormentor in his gilded hell. He touched my chin.
I spoke from the heart when I said, “I would have let him burn.”
He pulled me into his arms.
“He can’t hurt you anymore.”
He cradled my face, love looked back. “No, he can’t. Tomorrow, I’ll make arrangements to have him moved.” He wiped the tears from my cheeks and smiled. “No more ugly.”
BROCHAN
Cait and Ethan climbed into the Range Rover. Lizzie was taking them into town. She had intended to drive Brianna’s car, but since it was hit or miss that the thing would work I wasn’t risking them getting stranded. It had been two days since I shared with her my darkest secret. Finlay was being moved to a private hospital; the staff was arriving shortly to collect him.
She dropped her purse in the car, ducked her head to say something to Cait then strolled over to me. Her softly whispered words that night, how she would have let my father burn, I hadn’t been able to get them out of my head. I had worried showing her my father’s prison would be the thing that turned me into a monster in her eyes. We were cutting out the ugly, but I didn’t have remorse for locking him up. I could go to my grave with a clear conscience. To hear that she thought so too was all I needed to knock that weight from my shoulders. As she had done with Nadine, I was free of him.
“I’m going to show them town and then get a bite at the pub.”
“You don’t have to leave.”
“I would like to be here for you, but I think this is something you, Fenella and Finnegan need to do. It’s kind of a cleansing for all of you.”
I cursed Brianna for sending me Lizzie, but I was going to erect a monument to the woman. Even in death, she was looking out for me.
Lizzie got up on her tiptoes to kiss me, but she still wasn’t tall enough. I lifted her up and pressed her close. Her arms went around my neck, but she didn’t kiss me; she looked me in the eyes saying without words how she felt. Then she pressed a kiss on my mouth. “See you later, handsome.”
I squeezed her once and dropped her to her feet. She was halfway to the car when I called to her, “Enjoy the haggis.”
Her laugh carried back to me before she climbed in the car and drove off.
I walked inside to where Finnegan, Fenella and Anastasia were waiting. Anastasia had been my father’s nurse for the last year. We had a steady stream of them since none stayed longer than two years. “Are you ready for this?” Fenella asked.
“What’s he like today?”
“The same as usual, nasty. Now that he’s moving, this is a good time to give you my notice.”
There was a moment of silence, before she and Fenella broke out into laughter. I didn’t blame her; it was why I hired people because I didn’t want to be anywhere near him either. He was an infection, a plight on society. He deserved to be locked up and the key tossed.
We reached his room. Outside of when I came with Lizzie, I hadn’t visited him since his incarceration. As soon as she unlocked the door, I heard him. He didn’t need anyone in the room. It was the same rhetoric, his poor beautiful Abigail, me...the devil. I didn’t listen. The only reason I was here was to help pack up his shit. I was figuratively free of him and soon I would be literally free of him.
He stopped talking when we entered. He looked over at us, hope in his eyes that it was his beautiful Abigail. All these years later and he was still hung up on her; of course he was trapped in his mind, trapped in that time when his life ended with her death. He didn’t recognize us, not even me. He spared us a second or two then got back to his delusional nonsense.
“She lied. She lied…shouldn’t have lied, shouldn’t have…no baby, no baby, NO BABY.”
Finnegan shot me a look. I knew the story that Abigail had been told having a child could kill her. She wanted a baby so badly that she deceived my father and got pregnant. And all these years later, the ravings of a madman who was still tormented by how that deception cost them everything.
“Just once, only once. If she didn’t lie...should have stayed home. Only once, shouldn’t be baby, just once. Didn’t want my baby. Don’t want hers.”
“Are you hearing him?” Fenella asked “What baby?” She turned to Anastasia. “How long has he been going on about this?”
“A couple months.”
I looked over at Finnegan. “Do you know what he’s talking about?�
��
“No, but I do remember days after he learned Abigail was pregnant, after their huge argument, he locked himself in his study for a few days.”
“I remember that. Abigail was so worried when she couldn’t get through to him, but he was a changed man when he reemerged. He was still worried, but he got on board, for her,” Fenella added then she went as white as a ghost.
Finnegan reached for her. “What’s wrong?”
The first night I found Finlay standing over Brochan’s crib, he had received a phone call earlier in the day. Do you remember? We could hear him tossing stuff in his office.”
“What are you saying? That he was pissed at my mother for getting pregnant so he went off and fucked another woman?”
“That day, he must have found out there was a baby.”
Finnegan looked over at me. “Only once.”
“Why the fuck would he care? She was gone. Just the spawn that killed her was left.” I was furious. For all of his devotion, he was nothing more than a fucking cheat. He was old, he was completely broken, and still I moved right into him, grabbed him by the shirt collar and slammed him up against the wall. Fear shined through the crazy.
“You fucking made my life miserable, tried to break me, kill me, because you lost your precious Abigail, but you cheated on her. You put your cock in another woman when the love of your life was carrying your child. You’re a fucking fraud.”
I released him; he slid to the ground crying. “I’m done with this. Pack his shit or don’t, but I want him the fuck out of my house.”
LIZZIE
I found Brochan at the loch. Dusk was falling, but I managed to find my way. Cait and Ethan had called an early night, still adjusting to the time difference. He knew I had joined him because his shoulders relaxed. I loved that he could sense when I was near, the werewolf in him. I smiled at the thought.
I reached his side and didn’t love the shadows I saw. “I heard you had a rough day.”
“He claimed to love her. Loved her so much that her death sent him over the fucking edge, but he cheated on her.”
“I thought your father wasn’t really there anymore.”
